SAN FRANCISCO (CNN) -- An ugly fish known as the "living
fossil" has made another appearance in the ocean, surprising
scientists.

A coelacanth has been found in Indonesia -- 7,000 miles
(11,200 kilometers) from its only previously known location
near Madagascar.

The ancestors of the coelacanth (pronounced SEE-la-kanth)
date back 400 million years. Until 1938, scientists knew the
coelacanth only as a fossilized relic from the dinosaur era.

"So in 1938, it was almost a shock when one showed up, that
you get this, what's called a living fossil basically, this
fish that's known only from the fossil record and here it is,
some 80 million years later, you get a live one," said
Douglas Long of the California Academy of Science.

The second coelacanth known is exhibited in 1952

A fisherman pulled the first-known modern coelacanth from the
waters near the Comoros Islands near Madagascar. South
African biologist Marjorie Courtenay Latimer came across it
in a fish market.

History repeated itself in the latest discovery. University
of California-Berkeley biologist Mark Erdmann was in
Indonesia on his honeymoon when he visited a fish market in
Manada, Sulawesi, to look for manta shrimp, the animal he
studies.

"His wife pointed out a large, ugly fish going by on a hand
cart, which he looked at and immediately recognized as a
coelacanth," said Roy Caldwell, a biologist at UC-Berkeley.

The fleshy fins of the coelacanth earned it the nickname of 'fourlegs'

Caldwell said the coelacanths recently found in Indonesia
apparently live in the same type of environment as those
found in the Comoros, caves about 600 feet (18 meters) deep
along the steep sides of underwater volcanoes.

One reason for the coelacanth's ancient popularity was its
fleshy fins that reminded people of human limbs, Caldwell
said. Those fins led to speculation that the fish were
direct ancestors of land vertebrates.

The fish did not turn out to be the ancestor of humans, but
did manage to outlive the dinosaurs.